Jeffery Deaver - A Maiden's Grave

"Close as we could get it, Lou. In that field just over the trees. Turned out the river was too choppy after all. Now listen, Lou. You saw that chopper. It's a six-seater. I know you wanted an eight- but that's all we could rustle up." He hoped the man hadn't gotten a very good look at it; you could fit half the Washington Redskins in an old Sikorsky. "So, I've got a proposition. Let me buy a couple of the hostages."

"Buy?"

"Sure. I'm authorized to pay up to fifty thousand each. There just isn't room for the six of you and the pilot. No overhead racks for carry-ons, you know. Let me buy a couple of them."

Shit, Art, I could shoot one of 'em. Then we'd have plenty of space.

But he'll laugh when he says it.

"Hey, I got an idea. 'Stead of giving one of 'em to you, I could shoot her. Then we'd have plenty of room. For us and our matched sets of American Tourister."

The laugh was almost a cackle.

"Ah, but Lou, if you kill her you don't get any money. That'd be a bummer, as my nephew says." Potter said this good-naturedly, for he felt the rapport had been re-established. It was solid, fibrous. The negotiator knew that the man was seriously considering the offer.

"Fifty thousand?"

"Cash. Small, unmarked bills."

A hesitation. "Okay. But only one. I keep the rest."

"Make it two. You'll still have two left. Don't want to be greedy."

Fuck it, Art. Gimme a hundred for one. That's the best I'll do.

"Nope," Handy said. "You get one. Fifty thousand. That's the deal."

Potter glanced at Angie. She shook her head, perplexed. Handy wasn't bargaining. After some feigned horse trading, Potter had been prepared to turn over the full one hundred for a single girl.

"Well, all right, Lou. I accept."

"Only, Art?"

There was a tone in Handy's voice Potter hadn't yet heard and it troubled him. He had no idea what was coming next. Where had he left himself exposed?

"Yes?"

"You have to tell me which one."

"How do you mean, Lou?"

The chuckle again. "Pretty easy question, Art. Which one do you want to buy? You know how it works, good buddy. You go to a car lot and say, I'll take that Chevy or that Ford. You pays your money, you takes your choice. Which one you want?"

His heart. That's where Potter had left himself unprotected. In his heart.

Budd and Angie stared at the agent.

Tobe kept his head down, focusing on his animate dials.

"Well, Lou, now…" Potter could think of nothing else to say. For the first time today, indecision crept into Potter's soul. And, worse, he heard it in his voice. This couldn't happen. Hesitation was deadly in a negotiation. Takers picked up on it immediately and it gave them power, deadly power. With someone like Handy, a control freak, hearing even a one-second pause in Potter's voice might make him feel invincible.

In the delay Potter sensed he was signing the death warrants for all four hostages. "Well, that's a tough question," Potter tried to joke.

"Must be. Fact, sounds like you're pretty damn flummoxed."

"I just -"

"Lemme help you, Art. Let's take a stroll through the used-hostage lot, why don't we? Well, here's the old one – that teach. Now, she's gotta lot of mileage on her. She's pretty run-down. A clunker, a lemon. That was Bonner's doing. He rode her hard, I tell you. Radiator's still leaking."

"Jesus," Budd muttered.

"That son of a bitch," placid Angie said.

Potter's eyes were firmly fixed on the yellow, homey windows of the slaughterhouse. Thinking: No! Don't do this to me! No!

'Then there's the pretty one. The blond one. Melanie."

Why does he know her name? Potter thought. Unreasonably angry. Did she tell him? Does she talk to him?

Has she fallen for him?

"I myself have taken a shine to her. But she's yours if you want her. Then we have this little shit that can't breathe. Oh, and finally we got the pretty one in the dress just about became Miss One-Eye. Take your pick."

Potter found himself looking at Melanie's picture. No, stop it, Potter commanded himself. Look away. He did. Now think! Who's the most at risk?

Who threatens his control the most?

The older teacher? No, not at all. The little girl, Emily? No, too frail and feminine and young. Beverly? Her illness would, as Budd had suggested, irritate Handy.

And what of Melanie? Handy's comment about taking a shine to her suggested that some Stockholming was going on. Was it enough to make him hesitate to kill her? Probably not. But she's older. How could he ask for an adult before a child?

Melanie, Potter's heart cried helplessly, I want to save you! And the same heart burned with rage for Handy's laying the decision in his lap.

He opened his mouth; he couldn't speak.

Budd frowned. "There isn't much time. He may back down if we don't pick right now."

LeBow touched his arm. He whispered, "It's okay, Arthur. Pick who you want. It doesn't really matter."

But it did. Every decision in a barricade incident mattered. He found himself staring at Melanie's picture again. Blond hair, large eyes.

Be forewarned, De l'Epée .

Potter sat up straight. "Beverly," he said suddenly into the phone. "The girl with the asthma." He closed his eyes.

"Hmmm. Good choice, Art. Her wheezing's gettin' on my nerves. I was getting close to doing her on general principles 'cause of that fucking wheeze-wheeze shit. Okey-dokey, when you get the cash, I'll send her out."

Handy hung up.

No one spoke for a long moment. "I hate that sound," Frances finally muttered. "I never want to hear a phone hang up again."

Potter sat back. LeBow and Tobe were looking at him. Slowly he swung to the window and looked out.

Melanie, forgive me.

"Hello, Arthur. This's a bad one, to hear tell."

Frank D'Angelo was a lanky, mustachioed man, calm as a summer pond. The head of the Bureau's Hostage Rescue Team had been in charge of the hot work in fifty or sixty negotiations Potter had run. The tactical agents – pulled off the Florida and Seattle barricades – had just arrived and were assembled in the gully behind the command van.

"It's been a long day, Frank."

"He's got a booby trap rigged?"

"So it seems. I'm inclined to get him out on a short leash and then apprehend or neutralize. But that's your speciality."

D'Angelo asked, "How many hostages left?"

"Four," Potter answered. "We're getting another one out in about ten minutes."

"You going to make a surrender pitch?"

The ultimate goal of all negotiations is to get the takers to surrender. But if you make your case to them just before they get their helicopter or other means of escape, they might conclude, reasonably, that an offer to surrender is actually a veiled ultimatum and that you're about to nail them. On the other hand, if you just green-light an attack there'll likely be casualties and you'll spend the rest of your life wondering if you might have gotten the takers to give up without any bloodshed.

Then too there was the Judas factor. The betrayal. Potter was promising Handy one thing and delivering something very different. Possibly – likely – the man's death. However evil Handy was, he and the negotiator were partners of sorts, and betraying him was something Potter would also have to live with for a long, long time.

"No," the agent said slowly, "no surrender pitch. He'll hear it as an ultimatum and figure we're planning an assault. Then we'll never get him out."

"What happened here?" D'Angelo pointed at the burned portion of the command van.

"Tell you about it later," Potter responded.

Inside the van D'Angelo, Potter, LeBow, and Budd looked over the architectural plans of the building and the terrain and SatSurv maps. "This is where the hostages are," Potter explained. 'That was current as of an hour ago. And as far as we know the gas bomb is still rigged."